Could Dils Be Rams’ Jeff Kemp? : Backup Quarterback Will Get His Chance on the Tightrope Now That Bartkowski Is Hurt

So Steve Dils will start at quarterback for the Rams against Tampa Bay at Anaheim Sunday.

Too bad. What a nice guy he was, brimming with confidence as they strapped him in.

“I think I can play football,” he said. “I’ve always believed in myself a lot. Sometimes it’s been difficult when I haven’t played any football at all--like, what have I done to prove it recently?

“But I know how to play the game. I can play the game. I take good care of myself. I do what they ask of me. Like this week, they’re asking me to start and play well. I’m very comfortable with the fact that I’m gonna start this week.”

Ram quarterbacks never learn. They are the test pilots of pro football.

“My God, you gonna send the kid up in that crate?”

“We couldn’t stop him, chief.”

“Wow, what guts!”

Dils got his chance last Sunday when, with the Rams trailing, 27-0, Eagle safety Andre Waters drilled Steve Bartkowski in the right knee, the same knee that may one day rest in the orthopedic museum. Dils dropped his clipboard, donned his horned helmet and charged into the fray.

“I felt really well-prepared,” he said. “Bart, obviously, isn’t the healthiest of guys, so I’ve spent a lot of time preparing for every game because you never know when he will go down. I walked in and felt real comfortable.”

Dils had thrown only seven passes in two-plus seasons with the Rams. The last time he started was when he took over for another casualty, Tommy Kramer, at Minnesota in 1984 and played the last 12 games--precisely the same point in the season as this.

“When Kramer got hurt, for some reason I was nervous and it took me awhile to settle down,” Dils said. “This one, I felt in control from the start.”

He threw three touchdown passes, two more than Bartkowski had thrown in three-plus games. The Eagle defense was somewhat relaxed by then, but still, Dils did little to embarrass himself.

“I get the feeling everybody is real surprised that I played well,” he said. “It wasn’t a big surprise.”

But it’s uncertain whether, at 30, Dils can make a career of it. Ram quarterbacks walk a tightrope without nets, and the falls have been fearsome. Bartkowski says he’ll be back and, if he isn’t, Jim Everett, upon whom the Rams have spent two first-round draft choices and about $2.7 million, can’t be far behind.

“That sounds like there’s not much resting on me,” Dils said. “What I feel like is that it’s an opportunity to play, an opportunity to solidify my position on the team, and an opportunity to get us back on the winning track.

“(At Minnesota) we knew Tommy was out for the entire season and that I was gonna be the starting quarterback. They brought Archie (Manning) in, but they said it was my job until I lost it. Here, everybody’s assuming that Bart will be back.

“I think it’s Steve’s job. He earned it, and he was 3 and 0 before the game. You don’t take jobs away (when a player is hurt). And who gets the credit is not the big deal. The big deal is (to) win.”

As for Everett, Dils said: “John (Robinson) has looked for the quarterback that can do the things he wants to do. I think at times we struggle just from the fact that we come from such a strong running philosophy. We’ve had such a good team that we’ve tried not to screw it up.

“But I think they’ve made a step in the direction that ‘Jim is going to be our quarterback down the line.’ ”

As a senior at Stanford in 1978, Dils led the nation in passing. The Vikings drafted him in the fourth round, but he never got a chance to play regularly until ’83. This is his second chance.

“The one thing I’ve got going for me this year is I’m healthy,” he said. “I’ve been able to practice every day when the other quarterbacks went down. I don’t get sore arms. I’ve thrown a lot of passes and I’ve never once had a sore arm.

“I’m not anywhere near the pure passer that Bart is. He’s one of the best ever, but obviously I can move around a little better, and I feel real comfortable with play-action passes and moving the pocket around. I can spin around and really make it look like a run instead of just the basic drop.

“We have what we call flow pass , where we fake a gap play and you move out of the pocket. Those type of things I feel good with: moving around, throwing the quick pass, picking your spots to throw deep.”

Throwing deep has been the rap against Dils.

“At certain points in my career, that was true,” he said. “I didn’t think it was true in college. I threw the ball deep pretty well, but I didn’t have a John Elway-type arm, so they put you in a category: ‘Well, he’s a control-type passer.’

“Then I went through a stage where I didn’t lift weights as much as I should have. I got real discouraged when Les Steckel came in (as coach at Minnesota). I could see I was gonna be the one to go, so I quit lifting the weights and doing the things you’ve gotta do, and my arm was not nearly as strong as it should have been, so I kind of got labeled with that here.

“But during the preseason, I showed that I can throw the ball deep. I’m not gonna make a living doing it, but if it’s done in the right situation, I can throw it deep and I can throw it where I want to throw it.”

This week Dils got a good-luck phone call from an old friend, Jeff Kemp, who now starts for the San Francisco 49ers.

“It’s ironic how things worked out,” Dils said. “He went up there figuring he’d play hardly at all, then Joe (Montana) gets hurt and he’s starting for the rest of the season, and now I’m getting an opportunity to play.

“Jeff and I have remained good friends through the whole thing. It was difficult, especially last year when we both wanted to play so badly. There was tension there, and when Dieter (Brock) got hurt it went back and forth about who was gonna start.”

Oh, yeah, Dieter Brock. What ever happened to him?

Dils said: “It’s been a tough off-season and season for Dieter, starting with everybody giving him such a hard time about the Chicago game, and then his back getting hurt at the start of camp, and getting a knee in the first preseason game. I feel a lot of empathy for him.”

Nevertheless, Dils says, he doesn’t want to be traded.

“I like playing here,” he said. “I like playing for John Robinson. I like playing for (quarterback coach) Dick Coury. I like playing for the Los Angeles Rams.”

See? Ram quarterbacks never learn.